cross-posted from: https://lemmy.sdf.org/post/36103503
[...]
Few dates are as difficult to say out loud in China as June 4. Thirty-six years after the government ordered the bloody repression of peaceful protests in Tiananmen Square that had been demanding political reforms for weeks, the event is invisible in textbooks, the media, the tightly controlled internet, and everyday conversations.
The victims lack official recognition — the total number remains unknown, with estimates ranging from hundreds to several thousand — and their families must grieve in silence, under surveillance, and with little opportunity to pay tribute. The younger generations barely know what happened, and some even doubt it really did. Beyond the country’s borders, however, some of the protesters in exile refuse to let the flame of memory go out, aware that forgetting is also a form of defeat.
Trying to speak to anyone connected with those events inside China is an increasingly complicated task. Censorship, constant surveillance, and fear of personal consequences have imposed a silence that is difficult to break.
[...]
The Tiananmen Mothers have been demanding justice and the truth for 36 years. Their members, mostly women, are now well into their seventies. Many of those who were part of this association have passed away, as they recall in the statement they issued on this year’s anniversary. “For each of the victims’ families, those scenes are seared into their memories and can never be forgotten. This tragedy, one of the most atrocious to have ever occurred in the world, entirely caused by the government and leaders at the time, continues to fill their hearts with pain and has become a nightmare from which they cannot wake up,” they write.
“This is a wound that the Chinese people cannot heal, and it is a pain that will remain forever in the hearts of the families. History will never forget those innocent lives that were taken,” continues the statement, signed by 108 people; Mrs. You heads the list of signatories. A wounded protestor in Tiananmen Square, June 1989.
[...]
“During the white paper protests [which precipitated the country’s opening up in late 2022 after the pandemic], many people used the words ‘my duty,’ which are a legacy of 1989,” Zhou [Fengsuo, one of the student leaders of the 1989 protests] recalls. “It’s my duty,” was the response a student gave in 1989 when a journalist asked him why he went to Tiananmen Square. “It’s still an inspiring movement because it was peaceful. And the solidarity, love, and hope that emerged there are part of human history. And that will be respected and remembered forever, because dignity and freedom against tyranny transcend time and space,” Zhou adds.